


A Hole in the Heel and a Hint of a Toe

by bellabeatrice



Series: The Steve Rogers Knitting Club [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Birthday Presents, Fluff, Gen, Knitting, M/M, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Relationship, Pre-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29327412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellabeatrice/pseuds/bellabeatrice
Summary: On his 22nd birthday, Bucky Barnes wakes up to a lapful of Steve Rogers and a bundle of yarn.Or: Steve Rogers never admits defeat.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: The Steve Rogers Knitting Club [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2154147
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	A Hole in the Heel and a Hint of a Toe

Bucky doesn't expect much for his 22nd birthday. Steve has been unable to find work for most of the winter and all of the spring, stuck at home with lungs that verge on giving up, and his ma is still paying off his dad's burial. He expects to wake up at dawn, slip off to work without waking up Steve, have dinner at his family's house, and go out for drinks with Steve.

What he does not expect is to be greeted before dawn with a lapful of Steve Rogers, face half obscured by a forest-green bundle of yarn dangling two inches away from his nose.

"Happy birthday, Buck," Steve says over Bucky's bewildered noises. His voice is deep with sleep and full of pride, and its familiar cadence finally wakes Bucky up. 

It's the dawn of his 22nd birthday, and as his eyes land on the bundle of yarn in his face, Steve (still on his lap) finally begins to blush.

Bucky wants to wake up like this every morning.

Well, he could do without the yarn in his face.

"What _is_ that?" he finally manages to ask.

Steve is cherry red now, but there is not a hint of embarrassment or shame when he says, "It's your birthday present."

Gingerly, Bucky takes the bundle from Steve. It's a pretty color at least. He recognizes it as what remains of his moth-eaten sweater that had disappeared two weeks after the new year. Steve must have taken it while Bucky was at work and turned it into -

"Are those gloves?"

"Socks, actually."

Bucky holds one up. "Why do they have little pockets for my toes to go into, then?"

Steve snatches it back and takes the other one still in Bucky's grip with no small amount of force. He starts tugging at the ends of the so-called socks, and as Bucky watches him, the sleep seeps from his body to be replaced by the fondness that threatens to overwhelm him every time he spends more than five minutes in the same room as Steve.

Which, considering the fact that they live together, is worryingly often.

Steve thrusts the bundles of yarn back into Bucky's hands with a triumphant "There! Show a little appreciation for your birthday present now, would ya?"

Admittedly, they look a little more sock-like now. Bucky slips them on his feet and graciously neglects to mention the hole in the heel of the left sock and the way his big toe pokes out of a hole in the right sock. "Thanks," he manages to say, choking on a sudden urge to either laugh or cry. Steve looks so proud of the socks, and truthfully, inexplicably, Bucky loves ~~him~~ them. 

His feet are very warm, but that might have to do more with the fact that Steve is still half-sitting on his legs.

"Yeah, yeah, you jerk," Steve says as he clambers off Bucky's lap, and Bucky misses the slight weight of him immediately. "You've got a job to get to now, don't you?"

As Bucky dresses, Steve slinks off to the kitchen. He's there waiting by the door for Bucky with a sack lunch and his jacket when Bucky finally finishes fixing his hair.

"You look like a housewife, Rogers," Bucky says, just to rile him up.

Steve indulges and scowls. "And you look like a right jerk, Barnes."

Bucky runs his fingers through Steve's sleep-rumpled hair and delights in the way his scowl deepens. "I'll see you at Ma's tonight for dinner?"

The fight seeps out of Steve, and Bucky loves this too, the way he softens as he says, "Yeah, Buck. I'll be there."

Bucky smiles to stop himself from pressing a kiss to the wrinkle in Steve's forehead that never seems to go away. Even here, at dawn and surrounded by their domesticity, Steve carries the weight of the world. Bucky forces himself out the door without another word, scared of what he might say. 

As he hurries to work, Bucky sticks his hands in his pockets to protect his hands from the bite of the wind, but there's already something in his left pocket. Bewildered, Bucky pulls out another bundle of cloth. Socks, again, but the proper ones Becca had given him at Christmas. In the middle of morning rush hour on the Brooklyn streets, Bucky barks a laugh, fond and surprised. Its the closest thing to an admission of defeat from Steve that Bucky has ever seen, and it's in the form of a pair of proper socks, tucked like a secret in the pocket of his winter coat.

Later that evening, Bucky will kick his boots off to sit on the couch with a tipsy Steve Rogers. Steve will curl around Bucky and stick his hands under his shirt, and his frigid fingers will make Bucky squeal, just as they always do. They'll fight as they always do, rough and fond an excuse simply to touch each other. Steve, half-sprawled in Bucky's lap and very nearly falling off the couch will finally take notice of Bucky's feet, still clad in forest-green. He won't say a word, Bucky knows, because Steve is just as bad at admitting defeat as he is at taking a compliment, but Bucky also knows that Steve will understand the gesture for what it is.

Eventually, they'll settle, Bucky with his legs hanging off the edge of their too-small couch and Steve tucked in the space between Bucky's body and the back of the couch. Bucky will think they ought to go to bed, but then Steve will fall asleep, still exhausted by the cold and his aching joints, and Bucky wouldn't disturb him for anything in the world. Instead, he will curl an arm around Steve and let his lips ghost against his temple, and on every exhale he will think about saying the words that curl around his sternum in the quiet moments like these.

He will wake again the next morning with warm feet and a lapful of Steve Rogers, and he will decide, listening to Steve gripe about his hangover, that there will never be anywhere in the world he would want to be but here.


End file.
